


Crumble

by westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Episode Tag, Episode: s02e22 Two Cathedrals, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-02-04
Updated: 2006-02-04
Packaged: 2019-05-30 09:33:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15093995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist/pseuds/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist
Summary: Delayed reaction.





	Crumble

**Author's Note:**

> A copy of this work was once archived at National Library, a part of the [ West Wing Fanfiction Central](https://fanlore.org/wiki/West_Wing_Fanfiction_Central), a West Wing fanfiction archive. More information about the Open Doors approved archive move can be found in the [announcement post](http://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/8325).

 

TITLE: Crumble  
AUTHOR: Kasey  
RATING: PG, ESF, S/M  
SUMMARY: Delayed Reaction  
DISCLAIMERS: They don't belong to me. I'm not on enough drugs to be Sorkin.   
Oh - and at one point I sorta pharaphrase a line from Sports Night, which is   
also Sorkin, those of you who know SN will know it, other than that it's not   
too major, just know I don't mean infringement and have no money which would   
be worth suing me over.  
SPOILERS: Two Cathedrals, and minor ones in passing for other eps (especially   
the final four of the second season and episodes with Mallory in them)  
WARNINGS: None.  
THANKS: To my betas, wonderful eternal. 

 

 

It was very late when he got home, so late it was early. He knew there would   
be no sleep in his future for a couple days, but at least he could shower and   
shave, watch a little TV even, if he was lucky. 

Mostly, the reason he had gone home was so that he could have a little time   
away from anyone else. Away from Josh and Toby and CJ and Leo and the   
President. Away from being the one who had to keep it together. Who had to   
fight to keep control over his own body and emotions, the one who had to   
fight the hardest. Him and CJ, because they had to be the most in control,   
almost like a rite of passage, because CJ was a woman and he was the   
youngest, they had something to prove somehow, showing that they could stay   
calm and collected in the face of all that had happened. 

And it was so much which had happened, too. First finding out, then Mrs.   
Landingham, and the President deciding on the spot to run again. My God, Sam   
thought. Leo had been right - as much as he wasn't sure whether he wanted to   
be or not, he had been right. 

He closed the door of his tiny apartment behind him and leaned against it,   
sighing. Too much - it was all too much. All the strength he'd once   
had, he'd always been the strong one before, but now he was too tired. Too   
physically and mentally and emotionally spent to put up a front. He didn't   
have to - he was in his own home, with no one around. It had taken   
everything he'd had not to break into sobs at the funeral or tears of   
jubilation when the president had said "I will absolutely be seeking a second   
term". 

Alone in his home at last, away from anyone he needed to hide from, he put   
his head in his hands and sobbed like a child. Slowly, he slid his back down   
the door until he was sitting on the carpeted floor, back against the door,   
elbows resting on bent knees as he covered his face and cried, open gasping   
sobs. 

"Sam?" 

He jumped seven miles at the sound of a voice. 

"Are you okay?" 

He looked up and saw he'd been right in his guess about the owner of the   
voice. "M-Mal," he whispered, embarrassed. "What are you doing here?" 

"I figured you might need someone to... anyway. I came over after the press   
conference." 

"Then you've been here a long time." 

She shrugged. "I fell asleep waiting for you…" 

"I-…I didn't realize anyone was here." 

"And that's the only reason you felt it was safe to cry, wasn't it?" she   
asked quietly, feeling as though she'd intruded on something she shouldn't   
have. 

He nodded meekly. 

She sat down beside him, her back partly against the door and partly against   
the wall beside it. "It's okay," she murmured. 

He normally would've waited for a sign or asked permission or something - for   
it was still in that stage of the relationship, made more so by Sam being Sam   
and having very little self-confidence where women were concerned - but   
instead of asking, he immediately swept her up in his arms, holding her   
tight, clinging to her in hopes that she might not also slip away as had   
everything else recently - everything he thought he knew, thought he could   
depend on, thought was the truth. Every person he had trusted had turned out   
to be not quite who he thought, and it scared him to the core, much more than   
he would ever admit even to himself. He'd lost too many friends in the past   
year, and come too close to losing a couple of them to even think about   
without shuddering. 

He soaked Mallory's shoulder with his tears, but she didn't say a word.   
There was nothing to be said, so what good would it do? 

And by the time she thought about the fact that there was silence, her tears   
were soaking Sam's shoulder as well. She hadn't known about the MS until   
she'd been trying to watch "Ed" and found it was pre-empted by a Dateline   
Special with the President. The family-like ties she'd once had to the   
President were apparently gone, she'd realized then for the first time, and   
that scared her almost as much as the fact that the President was sick. Her   
"Uncle" Jed was sick. 

They were living in fractious times - professionally, socially, mentally,   
emotionally, and they needed each other badly. More than ever before. 

And as the rain beat down against the glass windowpanes and the tears fell,   
the world continued to spin just as it had the entire time, just at it had   
kept spinning when the shots rang out at Rosslyn, just as it had when he'd   
gotten the phone call from his irate mother, just as it had when the   
president had called him into the Oval Office and said "Sam, I have MS". The   
world kept turning - for that's what it did. It kept spinning, kept   
changing, kept progressing. 

And that's how Sam knew it would all be okay eventually. 

~FIN~

  


End file.
